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The Arab and the Brit
The Last of the Welcome Immigrants
Bill Rezak
Cloth $24.95
| 978-0-8156-0974-2
| 2012
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"Rezak re-creates, in novel form, detailed genealogical accounts and emigrations by his Arab and
British forebears who share values of ambition, hard work, devotion to family and education."—James A. Jacobs, author of Transgressions: A Novel
"An epoch adventure of an immigrant family arriving in
a strange land. . . . A page-turning classic."—Edward Coll, Alfred University
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Bill Rezak was president of Alfred State College from 1993 until his retirement
in 2003. He was dean of the School of Technology at Southern Polytechnic
State University in Marietta, Georgia. Rezak is a mechanical engineer and spent
eighteen years in the design and construction of power plants before moving to
higher education.
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Born of a Palestinian father and a British mother, Rezak has always
been intrigued by the different worlds from which his parents came. His
father’s ancestors were highwaymen on the Arabian Peninsula in the
eighteenth century. They sparred unsuccessfully with ruling Ottoman Turks
and escaped with their families to America. His mother’s parents were
sent separately from Great Britain into indentured servitude in Canada,
alone at the ages of ten and sixteen. They worked off their servitude,
met, married, and moved to New York State. In The Arab and the Brit,
a memoir that spans multiple generations and countries, Rezak traces the
remarkable lives of his ancestors. Narrating their experiences against the
backdrop of two world wars and an emerging modern Middle East, the
author gives readers a textured and vivid immigrant story.
Rezak recalls his paternal grandmother apprehending would-be
Russian saboteurs during World War I, his grandfather’s time at Dr.
Bernardo’s home, a shelter for destitute children, and his father’s work
with the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Association following
World War II. Told with humor and captivating detail, The Arab and the
Brit chronicles the trials and triumphs of one family’s struggle to succeed
in the New World.
6 x 9, 248 pages, 12 black-and-white illustrations, appendix, bibliography, index
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